52: Oath of Absolute Vengeance
"-[Attendre, Espérer]." I mutter, and in a cloud of golden dust, the Evil Dragon Fafnir's wound seals shut. "This creature is weak to curses. The Dragonslayer aside, this ought to have been something you prepared for, my so-called master. With such an indolent attitude, do you truly believe you can achieve your wish?"
"Shut the hell up. Don't go calling me lazy- not when you just let them get away." She hisses.
"-No, this is not slothfulness, but prudence, my so-called master. I cannot face them as I am, so I will plot, scheme, and prepare until the deed is done." I reply, hatred burning in my gut. I won't forgive that Caster. The master was just doing what he saw as the best thing to survive, but that musician took what was sacred, and perverted it into a weapon. I won't forgive him.
"...No, one such as I ought to hold nothing sacred. Ha! Kuhaha! To think that music could affect me so deeply!" I scowl. "How disgusting."
"What the hell are you on about now?" Master says. "Just get moving, won't you?"
"They'll have thirty minutes' grace. I'll pursue once I'm ready." I say. "I need to return to my workshop - will you have me serve as your chauffeur once more?"
"Sure. I was already getting sick of this stupid chase." She says with a derisive laugh.
"...No, that's the wrong answer, my so-called master. An Avenger mustn't be so mercurial." I chide her. "You should have insisted on pursuing your course to the end, by whatever means were necessary."
"Fine, I'll stay here then!" She says, rolling her eyes.
"No, that's no good either. Because you're still simply following the commands of others. Like this, there's no way you can become a real person. You'll stay that man's weapon forever."
"-Then I'll do both."She scowls, and a second later she tears a scrap of cloth from her dress, tying it to one of Fafnir's fingers. "There. A Holy Shroud, to protect from curses. Even though I've become like this, I'll still use that [Saint] skill as much as I like. If God doesn't like that, he can strike me down."
For an instant, she fizzles in place. Cutting out of reality like static. But it stops as quickly as it starts, and an instant later she's fine. The [Saint] skill alone wasn't enough to destabilize her Spirit Origin. It was risky, but…
"That's it. That's the kind of resolve that suits an Avenger, my master."
"Ohhhh! Jeanne! You're back! How WONDERFUL!" Shrieks Berserk Caster as we arrive in the castle. Ignoring him, I deposit my master and storm away, down two flights of stairs, towards my workshop.
I'll need Mystic Codes. Earplugs, to deal with that music - tufts of chimera hair, layered in a waxy paste of blood mixed with void dust, the cursed nature of which will naturally repel the beauty of that Caster's music. A sword-catcher, crafted with wyvern claws and layered with curses-.
"Hmmm? Isn't that [Tawrich]? Or is it [Zarich]?" A constant nuisance asks as she barges into my workshop as if she owns the place. "I never figured Avengers loaned each other stuff like that."
"How should I know? This is but an imitation of a weapon I encountered in a Turkish bazaar once upon a time." I respond, dully.
"Turkish…? Oh, that's those guys the Greeks are having so much trouble with, right? Hahaha! There's gotta be some kind of awful story about how that thing wound up in a marketplace." She giggles, and then she leans against me, fluttering her dark black eyes. "Hey, won't you tell me your story already? I'm ready to burst at the seams from curiosity."
She wasn't told about me by the throne. Because this woman is a living "human", after all.
"Then go ahead and burst." I say coldly. There's still one more worry-
"-[Guillotine Breaker]!"
Marie Antoinette. In spite of everything, I've no grudge against the monarchy - but I need a method to deal with that Noble Phantasm which so thoroughly counters my [Monte Cristo Mythologie].
"Kyaaa! You want me to burst? You shouldn't just ask to see a lady's organs like that, you pervert!" The red-faced nuisance wiggles in place, making suggestive motions and pressing her body against me. "B-but, if it's you, I'll show them to you, mister Avenger!"
I cast her away from me. "Be silent, Prelati. Either tell me what you came here for, or be gone."
"Fine, fine." The living 'human' Francesca Prelati mutters disappointedly. "The 'me' that was summoned, he's united with the other Jeanne. You ought to bring those glasses of yours."
"So you were still in contact with him after all - what's your plan, playing both sides like this?" I ask, retrieving the illusion piercing glasses from a nearby shelf. They won't pierce his Noble Phantasm, but basic illusion magecraft won't be a match for them.
She gives a tittering laugh. "Hey, mister Avenger, do you really think that I'm the type of person to make big plans like that?"
"Yes." I say without an ounce of hesitation.
"Pft...hahaha! You just said it! You didn't even hesitate!" The Alchemist cackles. "You're right! You're totally right! I have a cunning plan, and I'll share it with you, mister Avenger!" Her voice falls to a conspiratorial whisper. "Because, after all, you're an ally of humanity too, right?"
"Kuhaha! Humanity? I bade farewell to that some time ago!" My cruel grin returns to my face like a bird to his roost. "I will not - nay, can not save humanity. All I shall do is punish the wicked."
"Well, that's fine too, just so long as you're on our side." Francesca replies easily.
I grind my teeth, faint embers of fury glowing within my heart. "Do not think to make a pawn of me, woman. I've had my fill of being led around by the nose."
"Ahaha!~ It's fine, it's fine. Just keep doing what you're doing. What you're doing right now is perfect." She laughs.
"...In that case, let me hear it. This plan of yours." I say, turning and staring deep into her black eyes.
She tells me. I listen for a full five minutes, as she details every last step of her plan to save humanity. Until I understand it all. Until I can't possibly withhold my wrath any longer.
I grab her with both hands, and Francesca Prelati vanishes in a column of black fire. Her body bursts, and a shrieking, squirming, black thing attempts to fly out, but that too is engulfed by my flames of vengeance. Until, at last, nothing is left.
I breathe heavily. Dimly, I notice my right hand twitch upwards. It's the echo of the time before I forsook salvation - my first impulse after the deed is done is to cross myself. Indeed, were I still mortal, if I were not an Avenger, I'm certain I would have found myself fleeing to the nearest church to seek absolution.
I had known evil men, back when I was alive. I had known self-interested men, willing to throw innocents to the wolves for their own gain, or out of spite, or to save their own skin. And after I was summoned, I met the other servants - madmen, driven to evil through the compulsion of magic - or in Berserk Caster's case, through grief.
But I think, just now, I finally met Satan himself.
He has to die. He has to die. Francois Prelati must die. Whether that plan he shared with the woman I just killed will work or not, I have to kill him.
I don't remember this, from last time. Did it not happen, or does it not qualify as a "grudge"? The second possibility is worrisome, because he has to die. Even if it's not personal, I cannot possibly allow something like Francois Prelati to exist.
-In that case, I have to do it right. Last time - [Guillotine Breaker]! - last time, that horse doused all of my flames. I remember that much. And as I recall from the clash earlier, the Shielder and the Saint each have their own defenses to supply.
There is no room for failure. I must not fail. I will carve a path through as many of them as I have to, to kill that creature. Even if I have to kill the saint, and not bring her back to my so-called master as I had hoped, that's fine. So long as Francois Prelati dies.
I put the finishing touches on my countermeasure for Marie Antoinette, and then I move.
The binds of time and space slip their grasp on me. I know the place - a small clearing, with a boulder in the middle, wherein the closest leyline lies. A location for summoning, and as I arrive, I see that their magic circle is already drawn and ready, the Master reciting the chant. The rest are arrayed about - that Red Knight and the Shielder standing close to him, the Queen and Composer standing a short distance away near their carriage, and that Satanic Alchemist sitting cross-legged on the opposite side of the circle from the master. The circle starts to glow - however…
"To paraphrase your words earlier- 'I won't let you do that.'" I mock, and before he can react, I activate my Noble Phantasm to its fullest extent. "- I follow a path beyond love and hate! [Enfer…" With impossible speed I blur into motion, surrounding the entire group with a swarm of curse-laden after-images. "-Château d'If]!"
"[Lord-!" The Shielder begins - but I won't let her finish. Her shield shattered when her Master was hit last time, so before she can manifest it at all, I flicker forward, and drive my hand cleanly through his chest.
"-Sorry. I've no time for mockery or torture this time." I apologize coldly, as black fire floods the clearing.
"- Camelot]!" She concludes, heedless of her master's injury, and a great castle many times the majesty of the fragile chalk wall manifests, encasing both her allies and myself completely.
"What-!?" I ask, hesitating for just a brief second - no, something's wrong, I need to-! "Ghk!"
Something punches cleanly through my stomach. A gleaming cavalry lance, blazing with blue ether, materializes in the human's hand - no, this isn't a human at all!
"Hah! You didn't think I'd just stand around blabbering, did you?" The door of the carriage is flung open, and the Master, the true Master emerges from therein, a healing spell pulsing from his mystic code to seal the wound shut around my arm. "You got your preparations done, now take a good look at mine - tear him to pieces, Lancer!"
He already summoned!? But last time- no, did Prelati delay me?
I focus, attempting to slip away once more - but with a clunk and hiss from the lance in my stomach, another blast of light tears through my body and concentration alike.
"Roger! [Ring of Transformation], release!" A young girl's voice comes from the disguised Lancer's mouth, and in a swirl of light, a smiling knight takes the place of the fish-eyed youth. "I am a rampaging wolf-!"
I blink away, outside of the shield's vicinity, into the storm of fire still engulfing the outside. Now, far enough from her, while they're trapped on the other side of that wall-! "[Enfer-!"
"Haaaaaaaaaaah!"
The distance shrinks. Somehow, impossibly, as if I had never moved at all, I find myself back within the castle's boundaries. Her lance smashes into me once more, a blast of energy finally tearing my torso from my legs.
Again, I try to escape, this time leaving a gout of cursed flame in my wake, but the [Rampaging Maiden Wolf] crashes forward without hesitation, seeming to only grow mightier as her flesh burns. Yet again, the distance shrinks, and her Lance tears into me. Impossible, as if my every motion was but an illusion, but with these glasses-!
"The 'me' that was summoned, he's united with the other Jeanne. You ought to bring those glasses of yours."
-Of course. She replaced my glasses with a fake pair. For all I know she isn't even truly dead. What a vile woman. But…
"Kuhahahahaha!" I roar with laughter, even as lance strike after lance strike shreds my body to pieces. "It's personal! That's right, it's personal now, Francois Prelati! I'll remember this! I'll kill you! I will, definitely, kill you!"
It will happen. I'm certain, so long as I wait and hope, so long as I never forget this - I will definitely, definitely, find a way to kill him.
"[Ira… Lupus]!"
My Spirit Origin finally gives way, and I know nothing.
And then we never saw Edmond or Francesca again, because they are both definitely dead for good and for real. Definitely. Definitely. Definitely?
Gareth is here. She got foreshadowed a bit last chapter, but now she's here for real. We'll get a flashback to her arrival next chapter. Maybe I should have had that happen first, but I kinda wanted a surprise reveal from Edmond's perspective. Thoughts for if and when we get to the big Orleans edit.